If you follow us on instagram you might have seen that I created our advent activity boxes with mindfulness in mind. Small pockets of time filled with a calming and relaxing activity to counterbalance all the usual stresses that come with the festive season. What is it with colouring in that makes it so wonderfully therapeutic? The kit comes with our beautiful chunky water colour pencils (which can be used on their own or blended with water), eco glitter and twine for hanging. Georgia Coote has written a wonderful blog for us with Advent in mind.

I love these Christmas decorations! There are lots of different ways you can distribute these Advent ones. If you have a fillable calendar, you could pop a decoration into each drawer along with a treat or two, similarly with a pocket style advent calendar. Alternatively you could pop them in little drawstring bags & give one each day. This year, I was keen to make a calendar from things I already have & so I decided to do a very simple version by stamping numbers on small brown envelopes - similar to the dinner money type of my school days!

I popped the watercolour pencils in the first envelope then stamped the numbers on the corners of all the rest and filled with the decorations, I think I’ll put in little treats occasionally and maybe the odd joke or two! I then simply hung them with mini bull dog clips onto a memo board. You could string them onto a garland, but I liked that the memo board would gradually evolve as the little envelopes were opened, hanging the decorations in their place and adding any other Christmassy touches to make a really fun festive display.

This would also work beautifully for groups. The children could pick out the decorations they’ve coloured in and show them off. I think that with the year we’ve all had, going a little extra with the decorating is just the thing! Preparing the advent piece is such a nice activity in itself, I had a lovely peaceful moment one evening with a cuppa stamping envelopes and looping pom poms through the board.

And if you already have advent sorted then there's also the bigger decoration kits - these are the perfect thing to do as an after school activity, or any moment you just want to sit & create a small slice of calm. Homemade decorations always mean so much more than ready made don’t they? I love the confidence they give children and sense of pride in their work. I’m planning on setting aside an afternoon for creamy hot chocolates, seasonal singing and making some of these decorations with the girls to pass on to our family members. It’s looking increasingly likely that we won’t be able to have our usual lively Christmas gatherings so gifting people little homemade treats & decorations will be all the more meaningful.